collection of Darwin’s earlier notes and an essay

Intellectual Revolution: by Wallace – was read to the Linnean Society, an

Darwinian Revolution association of naturalists, in London on July 1,
1858. The following year, Darwin published On
Darwin and His Theory of the Origin of Species, a lengthy, fleshed-out
treatment of his ideas on evolutionary theory. The
Evolution book was an immediate bestseller and quickly set
off a firestorm of controversy.
At first glance, Charles Darwin seems an
unlikely revolutionary. Growing up a shy and
Darwin had expected no less – fear of a
unassuming member of a wealthy British family,
backlash from Britain’s religious and even
he appeared, at least to his father, to be idle and
scientific establishment had been the primary
directionless. But even as a child, Darwin
reason he had delayed publicizing his ideas. Yet
expressed an interest in nature. Later, while
the concept of species adaptation was not so
studying botany at Cambridge University, he was
radical at the time. Scientists had been debating
offered a chance to work as an unpaid naturalist
whether animals evolved decades before Darwin
on the HMS Beagle, a naval vessel embarking on
put forth his theory. The idea of “transmutation of
an exploratory voyage around the world. In the
species” had been rejected by many prominent
course of nearly five years at sea – during which
naturalists, among them French scientist Georges
time the Beagle surveyed the coast of South
Cuvier, who believed that species had been
America and stopped in such places as Australia
created much as they appeared in his day. But
and, most famously, the Galapagos Islands –
transmutation also had early champions,
Darwin took advantage of countless opportunities
including Darwin’s grandfather, the famed
to observe plant and animal life and to collect
Birmingham physician Erasmus Darwin.
both living and fossilized specimens for later
study.
The younger Darwin’s achievement was
to offer a plausible and compelling explanation
After the Beagle returned to England in
for how species evolve and to use this explanation
October 1836, Darwin began reflecting on his
to trace the history of life’s development. All
observations and experiences, and over the next
existing creatures, he argued, descended from a
two years developed the basic outline of his
small number of original or progenitor species.
groundbreaking theory of evolution through
Darwin compared the history of life to a great
natural selection. But beyond sharing his ideas
tree, its trunk representing these few common
with a close circle of scientist friends, Darwin
ancestors and an extensive system of branches
told no one of his views on the origin and
and twigs symbolizing the great variety of life
development of life. Indeed, he did not publish his
that has evolved from them.
now-famous volume, On the Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection, until 1859, more than
This evolution, Darwin wrote, is due to
20 years after he had first formulated his theory.
two factors. The first factor, Darwin argued, is
that each individual animal is marked by subtle
On the Origin of Species may never have
differences that distinguish it from its parents.
been written, let alone published, if it had not
Darwin, who called these differences
been for Alfred Russel Wallace, another British
“variations,” understood their effect but not their
naturalist who independently proposed a
cause; the idea of genetic mutation, and indeed
strikingly similar theory in 1858. Wallace’s
the scientific study of genetics, would not arise
announcement prompted Darwin to publicly
fully until the early 20th century. The second
reveal that his own research had led him to the
factor, Darwin argued, is that although variations
same conclusion decades earlier. This being the
are random, some of them convey distinct
age of Victorian gentlemen, it was agreed that the
advantages – superior camouflage, a heartier
two scientists would jointly publish their writings
constitution or greater speed, for example – that
on the subject. Their work – comprising a
better equip a creature to survive in its
environment. A greater chance of survival allows
for more opportunity to breed and pass on
advantageous traits to a greater number of
offspring. Over time, an advantage spreads
throughout a species; in turn, the species is more
likely to endure and reproduce. Thus, over the
course of many generations, subtle changes occur
and accumulate, eventually morphing into bigger
changes and, possibly, even a new species.
While Darwin’s ideas initially
challenged long-held scientific and religious
belief systems, opposition to much of Darwin’s
thinking among the scientific communities of the
English-speaking world largely collapsed in the
decades following the publication of On the
Origin of Species. Yet evolution continued to be
vigorously rejected by British and American
churches because, religious leaders argued, the
theory directly contradicted many of the core
teachings of the Christian faith.
Darwin’s notion that existing species,
including man, had developed over time due to
constant and random change seemed to be in clear
opposition to the idea that all creatures had been
created “according to their kind” by God, as
described in the first chapter of the biblical book
of Genesis. Before Darwin, the prevailing
scientific theory of life’s origins and development
had held that species were fixed and that they
never changed. This theory, known as “special
creationism,” comported well with the biblical
account of God creating the fish, fowl and
mammals without mention of subsequent
alteration.
Darwinian thinking also appeared to
contradict the notion, central to Christianity and
many other faiths, that man had a special, God-
given place in the natural order. Instead,
proponents of evolution pointed to signs in
human anatomy – remnants of a tailbone, for
instance – showing common ancestry with other
mammals.
Finally, the idea of a benevolent God
who cared for his creation was seemingly
challenged by Darwin’s depiction of the natural
world as a savage and cruel place – “red in tooth
and claw,” as Darwin’s contemporary, Alfred
Lord Tennyson, wrote just a few years before On
the Origin of Species was published. Darwin’s
theory challenged the idea that the natural world
existed in benevolent harmony.
Darwin fully understood, and at times
agonized over, the threat that his work might pose
to traditional religious belief, explaining in an
1860 letter to American botanist Asa Gray that he
“had no intention to write atheistically.” But, he
went on, “I cannot see as plainly as others do …
evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of
us. There seems to be too much misery in the
world.”
Regardless of his intentions, Darwin’s
ideas provoked a harsh and immediate response
from religious leaders in Britain. For instance,
England’s highest-ranking Catholic official,
Henry Cardinal Manning, denounced Darwin’s
views as “a brutal philosophy – to wit, there is no
God, and the ape is our Adam.” Samuel
Wilberforce, the Anglican Archbishop of Oxford
and one of the most highly respected religious
leaders in 19th-century England, also condemned
natural selection in a now-famous speech on what
he deemed the theory’s scientific deficiencies at
an 1860 meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science. At one point during the
meeting, Wilberforce reportedly asked biologist
Thomas Henry Huxley whether he was related to
an ape on his grandmother’s or grandfather’s
side. Huxley, whose vigorous defense of
evolutionary theory would earn him the nickname
“Darwin’s bulldog,” allegedly replied that he
would rather be the ancestor of a monkey than an
advanced and intelligent human being who
employed his “knowledge and eloquence in
misrepresenting those who are wearing out their
lives in the search for truth.”
Some scholars now contend that
Huxley’s rebuke of Wilberforce never occurred.
Regardless, it was around this time that the
British scientific establishment gained the upper
hand in the debate over evolution. And while the
public disagreement between ecclesiastical and
scientific authorities did not end in the 1860s,
religious thinkers became more wary of directly
challenging evolution on scientific grounds. In
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, churches
instead focused much of their energy on resisting
the idea that man had evolved from lower animal
orders and hence had no special place in creation
or, for that matter, a soul. Indeed, while some
churches, including the Catholic Church,
eventually accepted evolution as a God-directed
mechanism of biological development, none
questioned the role of God as the sole creator of
man.

By the time of his death, in 1882, Darwin

was considered the greatest scientist of his age.
Moreover, the very church his theory had
challenged accorded him a full state funeral and
burial in Westminster Abbey, near the grave of
Sir Isaac Newton. Darwin’s idea was still
provocative, but by the time of his death it had
gained general acceptance in Britain, even among
many in the Anglican clergy. Indeed, his
interment in the abbey was seen by some
contemporaries as symbolic of an uneasy truce
between science and religion in Britain.

This report was written by David Masci, a senior

researcher at the Pew Research Center’s
Religion & Public Life Project. (February 4,
2009)

https://www.pewforum.org/2009/02/04/darwin-and-
his-theory-of-evolution/